Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales eBook

“Now for the feather-bed,” said Molly.
“I’ll sew up the ticking, and when the
old woman plucks her geese, I’ll let you know.”

When it snows, they say the old woman up yonder is
plucking her geese, and so at the first snowstorm
Molly sent for the Ogre.

“Now you see the feathers falling,” said
she, “so fill the bed.”

“How am I to catch them?” cried the Ogre.

“Stupid! don’t you see them lying there
in a heap?” cried Molly; “get a shovel,
and set to work.”

The Ogre accordingly carried in shovelfuls of snow
to the bed, but as it melted as fast as he put it
in, his labour never seemed done. Towards night
the room got so cold that the snow would not melt,
and now the bed was soon filled.

Molly hastily covered it with sheets and blankets,
and said: “Pray rest here to-night, and
tell me if the bed is not comfort itself. To-morrow
we will be married.”

So the tired Ogre lay down on the bed he had filled,
but, do what he would, he could not get warm.

“The sheets must be damp,” said he, and
in the morning he woke with such horrible pains in
his bones that he could hardly move, and half the
bed had melted away. “It’s no use,”
he groaned, “she’s a very managing woman,
but to sleep on such a bed would be the death of me.”
And he went off home as quickly as he could, before
Managing Molly could call upon him to be married;
for she was so managing that he was more than half
afraid of her already.

When Molly found that he had gone, she sent the farmer
after him.

“What does he want?” cried the Ogre, when
they told him the farmer was at the door.

“He says the bride is waiting for you,”
was the reply.

“Tell him I’m too ill to be married,”
said the Ogre.

But the messenger soon returned:

“He says she wants to know what you will give
her to make up for the disappointment.”

“She’s got the dowry, and the farm, and
the feather-bed,” groaned the Ogre; “what
more does she want?”

But again the messenger returned:

“She says you’ve pressed the feather-bed
flat, and she wants some more goose feathers.”

“There are geese enough in the yard,”
yelled the Ogre, “Let him drive them home; and
if he has another word to say, put him down to roast.”

The farmer, who overheard this order, lost no time
in taking his leave, and as he passed through the
yard he drove home as fine a flock of geese as you
will see on a common.

It is said that the Ogre never recovered from the
effects of sleeping on the old woman’s goose
feathers, and was less powerful than before.

As for Managing Molly, being now well dowered, she
had no lack of offers of marriage, and was soon mated
to her mind.

THE MAGICIANS’ GIFTS.

There was once a king in whose dominions lived no
less than three magicians.